ZSU-23-4 and ZU-23-2 AA Guns: Views

I don't see anything wrong with upgrading those older vehicles, but the 23mm cannon was replaced by 30mm for lots of good reasons that are still relevant.

Also MANPADS lack range and are not very cheap... if you want to add some missiles then the Kornet-EM is one interesting option to allow engagement out to 10km with HE Frag rounds, or the SOSNA-R would be even better as it also has a 10km range and the same laser beam riding guidance, but has the enormous benefit of being a two stage missile with a booster stage that accelerates it to very high speed... instead of taking almost a minute to get to 10km it takes about 12 seconds...

The other bonus is that the Kornet and the SOSNA are relatively cheap.

Previously the Soviets used the Zu-23 system on the flat bed of a truck, or on the top of an APC, but this seems to be better in terms of it being fully remote control so no exposed gunners, with some small arms protection for the crew.

The fact that it is on the back of a vehicle means it should be highly mobile too... able to roll into a position... fire a few bursts and then drive away to another position... which should further improve safety and impact on the battlefield.

Can't really see what optics it has, but as it is vehicle mounted I would have changed the belt feed system so that it carried rather more ready to fire rounds... perhaps large ammo bins either side of the gun and lower it a bit...

Maybe even add a water cooling system for the barrels...

The seats next to the guns seem to still be in place, which would probably be fine in the manual operation of the system.

I must say that a twin 30mm version would be more effective, with better range and hitting power... and also the option of air burst ammo that would be particularly effective against UAVs and other small point targets that are otherwise hard to hit.

Air burst ammo and MANPADS are redundant here

Let's not kid ourselves, this thing is made for removing infantry from existence not aircraft

It says in the description that this system is intended to be used against low flying aircraft, helicopters, and UAVs and also ground targets.


For the latter two roles air burst ammo offers the best performance as it does not require a direct hit to damage the target... airbursting shells over enemy troops or amongst UAVs is vastly more effective than trying to hit small targets directly...

Basically a gucci version of what rebels and SAA have been using. Making it look more professional and better armour and no gunner exposed hey why not its proved it's worth in syria iraq Libya

Something Russian troops can use on Russian air fields with much better accuracy and greater protection for the troops using it... while being rather cheap and simple and multi purpose at the same time.

They could have improved the munition capacity.the two boxes looks small for 23mm rounds.

Agree... 100 rounds would be plenty for ground targets as you would only fire in very short bursts, but for aerial targets you would fire rather more ammo... so bigger ammo bins and perhaps water cooled barrels...

What is the rate of firing ?

The rate of fire is 800-1,000 rpm per barrel normally... so 12-16rps per barrel.

Against ground targets normally a fraction of a second burst is used however...

It really comes down to what sort of automation there actually is... does it have a laser range finder that calculates trajectory and aim points and the gunner just fires, or is it manually aimed?

I don't completely agree... this system seems to be about mobility and fire power... against many battlefield targets 23mm cannon shells would be very effective... if you look at a tank division, or even a light special forces attack team most of the personel and equipment would be vulnerable to 23mm cannon shells most of the time.

I mean most MRAPs and Humvees would be shredded by this gun, not to mention the light high speed dune buggies Special Forces teams love to operate in around the world in... starting in WWII with the jeeps covered in MGs through to modern light fast vehicles covered in machine guns... well these new ZU-23-2 vehicles are protected from machinegun rounds, though likely not HMG rounds, but its ammo would be effective to much greater distances against soft armour...

You don't need a Pantsir for every convoy and probably couldn't afford to anyway... but imagine a few of these vehicles scattered through a convoy to respond to an ambush... especially if the rear end is covered in a light Tarp that hides the gun... a push of a button and it collapse and your merry band of 20 guys with assault rifles and LMGs that was going to come in a shoot up those trucks and then disappear might disappear in a red mist much sooner than you expected...

The fact that it pretty much uses an unmodified ZU-23-2 mount including seats and original ammo boxes suggests it could be low cost for export, but I would suspect the concept and design could be applied to a wide range of vehicles including Tigr or Vodnik if that is still a thing...

Some sort of arrangement where the guns pop up and give full 360 degree fire power with much larger capacity ammo bins and decent optics would be a rather useful vehicle platform. but then you are adding cost and complexity I suppose.

For the Russians it might be more suitable in the more common 30mm calibre or perhaps even in 23x115mm calibre (note the above system is a very high velocity AA round in the 23x152mm round)... perhaps they could even go with the naval 30mm gatling guns like the AK-306, which as a rate of fire of between 300rpm to about 1,000 rpm which means you can fire a lot of ammo before the gun has overheating problems...

The ZSU-23-4 is still a useful system for Russia, even without missiles to fire, the weapon is very useful as BMPT with an air defense component, while the number of modern BMPTs grow. And fairly more powerful than the SAMUM with ZU-23-2 mounted.

The main problem in using the ZSU-23-4 in the ground support role is its rather thin armour, and all those electronics inside it become rather decorative... and certainly no cheaper.

The tracked chassis is more expensive to operate than a cheaper wheeled platform, though ripping out the electronics you could get rather more ready to use ammo in there, but it would make more sense to develop a lighter and more mobile platform... in practise in Afghanistan they often just put ZU-23-2 on the back of a truck or on top of an APC for low cost mobility and fire power.

In this case a small 4 wheeled vehicle with a lightly armoured cab and the ability to fire it from inside is not a bad solution to a low cost problem.

My only criticism is that it could be improved with a revised ammo set up that allowed rather more ammo to be stored ready to fire rather than requiring someone to have to get out to change mags every 100 rounds are fired...

Rather large ammo bins could be fitted that turned with the gun mount to simplify the ammo feed, though barrel overheating then becomes a serious issue too.

Being a vehicle mount a liquid cooling system should be easy to implement to allow longer bursts of fire without problems...

Instead, the ZU-23-2 as independent weapon and in other configurations would be on exhaustion, if not totally exhausted at this point.

In situations where mobility is useful, but the fire power of a HMG or grenade launcher is simply just not enough then a ZU-23-2 is an excellent system.

Its high velocity rounds means you can really reach out and touch quite distant targets and with a decent HE projectile it does not matter that the rounds are not arriving fast at longer ranges... you could set this up on the side of a hill and shoot at targets 4-5km away and do some damage... it would be a waste of time to try that with a HMG or grenade launcher... it probably wont be effective most of the time at that range but it would certainly get an enemy group of troops on their toes...

It will be interesting to see if they bother to replace the ZU-23-2 with a ZU-30-1/2 with a single twin barrel 2A38M cannon from a Tunguska... the heavier round and high rate of fire would make it rather interesting... and as I said much more powerful than any HMG or grenade launcher set up against soft ground targets, while sharing the same 30x165mm ammo of the BMP and Helos.

But it would be likely that Russia would offer this concept as export or as upgrade to t-55 users. The zsu-57-2 proved quite effective at ground support role. If you could seal the turret and make it self loading unmanned turret with caged armour and add AGS, 4 konkurs or AT-6 (as a cheaper alternative to kornet) and you would have a decent bmpt type vehicle armed with self loading twin 57mm guns, AGS, konkurs/AT-6 upgraded armour and unmanned turret with high elevation and a good way of using up zsu-57-2 sitting in storage and all for not a huge amount of cash.

Interesting idea... plus it would expand the export market for their new 57mm ammo...

Belt fed 57mm... I would probably remove both guns and replace them with a single gun but with a better ammo feed system to allow a higher rate of fire and allow more ammo to be carried... add a 30 or 40mm grenade launcher with lots of ready to use rounds, and as you mention... AT-6 Shturm missiles are relatively cheap and yet at the same time quite effective against most battlefield targets... you could include a licence to produce them locally...

A potent fire support vehicle for situations where a real MBT is probably overkill but a 30mm cannon armed IFV is not heavily armed enough...

If Im not wrong, the Sovietic/Russian production of the ZU-23-2 finished in 1980.

My Russias Arms catalog from 2002 includes ZU-23-2 as both new models and upgrades... it also included the ammo as well.

The total exhaustion of the ZU-23-2 is not a problem for Russia, that can move forward with better options.

At a time when they are putting SPG-9 type weapons back into service (with upgrades) I would expect the ZU-23-2 to remain useful for quite some time.

The ZSU-23-4 on the other hand will become rather more expensive over time to maintain and operate simply because it is more complex.

Of course the ZSU-23-4 uses different guns to the ZU-23-2 but they both use the same ammo. The guns on the ZSU-23-4 are water cooled and are able to sustain a higher rate of fire...

Another factor is that Russia is still a very big country and not every unit faces the might of NATO needing state of the art weapons...

A towed ZU-23-2 system that you could move around a hill top base that could reach out in any direction quite a substantial distance with relatively cheap but powerful and effective ammo is useful and already available...

You could deliver quite a few by helo... and remove them just as quickly.

My point exactly GarryB a towed AA gun delivered by helicopter ideal to protect high vantage points and if you do have to bug out not a massive loss or high tech.

In an emergency take the barrels and the bolts and pile the remaining ammo on top and set fire to what is left...

But very mobile and very useful systems that can reach out and touch an enemy that might otherwise think they are safe... modern thermal optics offer excellent long range visibility especially in some conditions like in the mountains or on open plains... having a weapon that can reach out and touch makes you safer.

But if not acted upon quick enough there comes a point something becomes so obsolete that only option is museum piece, target practice or scrap

The critical thing is ammo and do you have an alternative.

If you had millions of rounds of 30x165mm for your air force and suddenly your air force was grounded then it is an idea to work out some way of using the ammo... problems involved include most aircraft guns have very short ammo life spans... the single barrel 30mm cannon from the Flanker and Fulcrum are only good for 4-5 thousand rounds... which sounds bad... but they are compact and light and powerful and no fighter pilot would fire half that many rounds in an entire career let alone a fighter needing a replacement within the span of one war let alone several.

We see Ukrainians using the projectile from a 23mm cannon shell in a rifle muzzle mounted tube to act as a sort of grenade launcher... it is certainly a way to use up old cannon shells, but not really very safe and not really very effective... a 40mm grenade launcher would be much safer and more reliable and more accurate and effective...

The idea of putting old guns on new chassis and adding radar... when you add radar it starts to become expensive and much more automated... you need electric drives to operate the gun, which means rather sophisticated mounts etc etc

Most of the stuff we are looking at... ZU-23s lashed onto the back of APCs, or on flatbed trucks in open mounts are rather adhoc, but are also cheap and simple... they have the vehicles and the guns and clearly the ammo, so it makes sense.

As for the 57mm round etc how many
zsu-57-2 are laying around not just in Russian storage but around the world sitting doing nothing as well as other systems and vehicles? I remember an article on Belarus military which showed pictures that they were sitting with vast number of vehicles sitting doing nothing. Armoured vehicles and artillery guns a waste of money they could have cleared a lot of it decades ago. 2S1 and D-20 guns I remember was just sea of them.

When a real war starts it is often useful to have a reserve of weapons and ammo and parts to keep them operating... even if it is not your war, you can pass on ammo and weapons to allies.

There is the catch 22 of... if you keep the old stuff up to date and useful then it makes sense to actually use it, which makes things harder for new stuff that hasn't been made yet getting made.

Of course different militaries have different priorities... and different financial situations... a country like Belarus is a forward located Soviet country so there would likely have been rather more military equipment stored there than they could ever need... which was likely compounded by former Soviet forces in eastern europe likely passed through as they withdrew after the end of the cold war and might have dumped brand new kit... so of course weapons that a Syrian soldier would be happy to get his hands on might look like old crap to someone from Belarus who is not getting shot at.

In many places in Africa a ZSU-57-2 could be front line equipment that is vastly more useful than a tank because of its fire power... and lack of enemy MBTs...

In terms of self propelled weapons the ZSU-23-4 has advantage over the ZU-23-2.

The ZSU-23-4 is vastly more expensive to buy and to use than a towed ZU-23-2, and there are a lot of places you could never get a ZSU-23-4 that you could drag a ZU-23-2 and use effectively.

Lash a ZU-23-2 onto the back of a flatbed truck and it has a large portion of the mobility of the ZSU without the cost, but in terms of air defence performance the ZSU is rather better...

In terms of lighter man-portable weapons, the GSh-23 and GSh-30 (with 1, 2 or 6 barrels) have advantage over the ZU-23-2.

Well not really... if you want to use the GSh-23 or GSh-30 then you are going to have to rig up some sort of mount to use them and to store their ammo.... keep in mind that they are air force weapons so the ammo is electrically fired so you will need a good reliable power supply to fire them too... so the ammo needs to be air force ammo and it is not compatible with army ammo... which is percussion fired.

The aircraft weapons tend to have very high rates of fire.... which is usually not so important in ground to ground use... it would make short bursts rather devastating though.

Finland still use bmp-2 upgraded yet they have the cash to replace them must be a reason for it.

Couldn't be that it is a good vehicle suited to their conditions.... it wouldn't matter what they had in a real war...

Anti armour weapons are so widespread these days you need IFVs with tank level protection and even then they are not invincible...

And it's very unlikely you are going to air drop a zsu-23-4 on top of mountain etc.

And that is the important thing.... if you can't get heavy vehicles up there... neither can they... so the best they might have are mortars or HMGs... and the ZU-23 out ranges HMG by quite a distance...

In the mountains the advantage of being able to shoot at them and them not being able to shoot at you is the only advantage you need... there wont be jungle for them to hide in to sneak up on you... plus at higher altitudes helos become much easier targets as they are often struggling at the altitude and with no trees to hide behind...